RV016 and 4 WAN links?

I need to connect 4 WAN links (all cable modems from Adelphia running their new Extreme speed of 16MB/2MB) to a 30 user LAN in a college fraternity- it is a newly built house; I sit on the alumni board & am helping get the network configured, school starts next week.

There are only two devices I can find in my sub-$500 price range capable of doing 4 WAN links: the Linksys RV016, and the Edimax BR-6541K. The forum posts I have seen are pretty critical of the load balancing features of the RV016 (NAT issues, unexplained slowdowns when using more than 1 WAN link), and I can't find a single post or review of the BR-6541K, so I am skeptical either of them will do what I need.

Does anyone have experience or know if the RV016 with the latest firmware can do a decent job of handling 4 WAN links? Nothing sexy required in terms of VPN or port binding, just want to share the 4 WAN links between all the users.

I have some experience with load balancing at work where I use a Hotbrick VPN 800-2 to load balance between a fractional T-1 and a backup DSL line. The Hotbrick menus allow a simple "round robin" type load balancing where users are alternately assigned to one of the two WAN links by IP address, which would be fine at the fraternity if the RV016 supports similar method.

If anyone has a link with info or personal experience about using 4+ WAN links on a budget and the RV016 or any similar load balancing device in the same price range, I would appreciate some advice.

Your idea is completely absurd. I run a fraternity network with a rv016 and it works great with 1 adelphia extreme and 1 verizon 1500/384 business dsl. And believe me, we play just as many games, look at just as much porn, and download as much crap off of limewire as the next group of guys. Filling 16 megs is pretty tough. Additionally, we have between 50-60 hosts each semester, almost twice what you guys have.

The rv016 works pretty well. The only thing i don't like is that you can't moniter the uploading of individual users. It is also very difficult to moniter a syslog. I don't like people uploading and advertising the fact that they have 5,000 mp3's and 100 DVD movie images. I had to put my name down on the account because adelphia will only allow 1 business account for up to 4 living units (rooms). Basically we're bending the rules to save $$$. Something else I would recommend is setting limits on peer2peer services, just in case they slow down basic surfing and email.

As far as the 4 extreme lines, you defeat most of the purpose of load balancing and redundency. If one adelphia line goes down, they all go down. Also, if 1 adelphia line is slow or pinging bad, they are all going to act that way. My advice to you is to get another broadband isp to provide redundency on another system, preferrably cable, even if its speed doesn't compare to the monster 16/2 that adelphia offeres. 1500/384 beats the hell out of having nothing at all if adelphia goes down, which definitely happens. Also, the verizon dsl is 1500/384 for 40 a month only b/c it sucks in state college, pa. Check out the dsl providers to provide some reliability, and definitely don't bother with more than 2 of those crazy adelphia lines for 30 people. It's a huge waste of money.

Appreciate you taking the time to reply. Absurd or not, it is the best way I came up with given the limitations & choices we had.

The Adelphia cable service (voice & data) was ordered through FPA - they are aware of the number of occupants & there is no way they would let them get away with a single cable modem for all 30 tenants- they have a set package plan that was 5 users per modem, I got them to basically create another package that had 4 of the Extreme package modems for 30 users vice 6 at the standard speeds. Either I bind them all together using the RV016, or chop the users into 4 groups and point each to one of the modems, which would effectively create 4 separate LANs and prevent sharing files locally. I negotiated a price for the 4 modems running 16/2 at $220/month which split up 30 ways is just over $7/month- that's dirt cheap even for college students. I understand that there is no real redundancy given it is all on the same ISP, there just aren't many good options.

We get adelphia cable through FPA as well, they are clueless. We pay about 2 bucks a month per person and it's been great. Are you in State College, PA? Adelphia even came in to service some stuff, saw the whole single modem setup feeding the house, and didn't care. They're happy when students actually pay their bills. It's wasted money the way you're doing it. Play dumb if they catch you, they won't do anything.